1. Field
The present disclosure generally relates to fabrication of composite structures, and deals more particularly with a method and apparatus for laying up structures using automated ply lamination.
2. Background
Composite structures such as those used in the automotive, marine and aerospace industries may be fabricated using automated composite material application machines, commonly referred to as automated fiber placement (AFP) machines and composite tape layup machines (CTLMs). These machines may be used in aerospace applications, for example, to fabricate large scale structures by placing a plurality of tape strips in continuous, edge-to-edge contact forming a single wide conformal bandwidth that is compacted onto a tool.
The machines described above employ fiber placement heads that have a relatively high degree of operational flexibility, including the ability to add, drop off or cut any or all of contiguous tape strips independently of the others. However, these machines may not be well suited to laying up relatively long, narrow structures, such as spars and stringers, which require long tape courses having a zero degree fiber orientation, and many short tape courses of non-zero degree fiber orientation. For example, and without limitation, the automated machines mentioned above may have difficulty laying down the long zero degree tape courses that are not subject to wrinkling during forming, and may not be efficient in laying down the relatively short non-zero tape courses which require many rapid start-stop machine movements.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for automated composite tape lamination that is well suited for laying up relatively long, narrow parts which reduces or eliminates ply wrinkling, reduces material waste and increases the lay-down rate of non-zero oriented tape courses.